


Howling Inside

by ashurbadaktu



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Original Character Death(s), Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-02
Updated: 2012-10-02
Packaged: 2017-11-15 11:27:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/526793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashurbadaktu/pseuds/ashurbadaktu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The worst part of being a werewolf was the rage.  </p><p>(A Scott introspective.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Howling Inside

The worst part of being a werewolf was the rage.

Scott had seen his fair share of anger; huge chunks of his childhood had been anger, in some ways. His mother had always been angry at his father, and his father had always been angry at everyone. His employer, the people he owed money to, his 'friends', and especially at him.

Sometimes it had been about the money, the cost of his inhalers and his clothes and even the food he ate. Sometimes it had been about the way his mother cared about him, loved Scott more than she'd ever loved the man who'd given him to her. For a while, he'd tried to make it better. He'd tried to ask for less, he'd spent times over at Stiles's house so they could be alone, so that he wasn't there for his mom to focus on. He stayed quiet so his parents could talk and be adults and maybe if he was good enough, his dad wouldn't feel like he was such a burden and might actually like him. He'd tried that until he realized that it wasn't _what_ Scott did so much as the very fact of his existence.

He'd been ten and his mother had dropped him off at his grandmother's again because his father was 'busy' and she had a shift to work. He sat at the kitchen table, eating guayabate from the tin like he wasn't supposed to but she always let him do it anyway because he liked sweet things and the big crackers his mother ate with it always made his mouth dry. His grandmother glanced back at him every few minutes as she cooked, watching the menudo simmer on the range. It smelled horrible, it always smelled horrible, but it was one of his favorite meals in the winter especially when she made fresh tortillas. He didn't mind, though. He liked sitting in the kitchen with her. With his grandfather at the OTB so often, he knew she liked the company.

“There's something in your mind, nieto.”

“On my mind, abuela,” he corrected. She'd learned her English mostly from the television and through practical use, which meant that occasionally she got little things wrong. She didn't like getting it wrong, so she'd told him a long time ago to correct her if he noticed. It always made him feel a bit bad that he had to. He'd wished for a long time that he'd been allowed to learn Spanish as a child, so they could talk that way since it'd be easier for her, but his father had insisted that Scott only learn English 'so he doesn't get confused'. His mother hadn't won that argument, so he only knew bits and pieces while his cousins switched between the two with an ease that frustrated him whenever he got pulled to family parties.

“On your mind, nieto. What is _on_ your mind?”

He shook his head and dug his spoon into the hard paste for another bite. It was gritty and sweet and it gave him a little more time before he had to talk since it made his teeth stick together. When he looked up, though, she had turned around and was leaning against the counter with her attention firmly on him.

“Nothing, grandma.”

An eyebrow raise, one she'd managed to pass on to her daughter, had him sinking in his chair.

“Dad's angry at me again.”

That got a 'hmph' from her before she prodded him for more with a lift of her chin.

“I don't... I don't know how to make him not angry. He's my dad. I wish... sometimes I wish...” his lips pressed together and it took him a minute before he could get it out.

“Sometimes I think it'd be better if I wasn't born. Maybe they wouldn't fight so much. Dad always gets mad when Mom needs to buy me a new inhaler or new clothes and there's not enough money and maybe if they didn't have to have a house and stuff for me they'd be happier.”

She'd stared at him for a minute before putting down the wooden spoon and walking over. She couldn't bend very well, and she was too old to kneel, which was why she pulled him up and hugged him tight. A litany of Spanish slipped out of her as she held him, comforting words he could feel more than understand in between kisses to his cheeks and hair. Pobrecito. Mi vida. Te quiero mucho. It was love, pure and simple and so strong it almost made his eyes water. Her perfume didn't help there either but even that was comforting. 

When she stopped talking, she turned back to the stove for just a moment before ushering him out into the living room and sitting him down on the couch next to her. Her arm was wrapped around him tight as she spoke.

“Your father is a stupid man,” she said then, her lips brushing his temple. Scott had almost startled, because while he'd heard his mother call his father 'stupid' plenty of times before (and many many other things), she'd never told HIM anything like that. She didn't excuse him or apologize for how he acted; she just focused on how much she loved Scott and how important he was to her and that no matter what, she'd take care of him.

His grandmother saw the surprise on his face, because she continued.

“He is stupid porque he no understand that you are a gift. He think that he go out, he be rich and do whatever he wants. He no understand that the best thing he will ever make is you. That to be a good father is the most important thing. Is nothing you do, nothing you say. Is not your fault. Never your fault.”

“Really?” because his father could come up with plenty of things that he did and said and cost that were his fault. He could be smarter, like his friend Stiles. And his medicine cost money and his mom was out all the time making money because his father couldn't find a good job here. And he'd ripped his new jeans last week when he and Stiles had gone hiking in the preserve with Stiles's dad.

She nodded.

And that had been that. It wasn't his fault. But it hadn't made things any better. Because now, he was angry too. He was angry that his father hated him and angry that his father blamed him for things that now that he was really looking around, really thinking about it, were just normal things that parents did for their kids. He was angry that his father said nasty things to his mother and accused her of things like 'trapping' him and questioning whether Scott was really his. He was angry that someone so stupid could hold his inhaler away from him when he just wanted to breath and angry that he could tell Scott 'no' when he wanted to go over to Stiles's house for the crime of not being allowed to try out for the softball team.

His grandmother helped a lot, though, when she could. Scott's father didn't like him going over there too much, said she was a bad influence, but he got over there often enough. They'd sit together on her big bed and watch telenovelas while he played with the trucks she'd bought him at the dollar store and sucked on the chalky sugarcane candy they sold at the shop down the street from her apartment.

Her funeral was the first time he ever got angry enough to say something, angry enough to talk back. He was twelve and he'd been with his mother almost the entire time, trying to make her smile for longer than a twitch even though the pain in his own chest felt like it was going to swallow him up. He knew it had to be worse for her, knew it had to be all over because it was in her eyes and in her arms, making her move slow like everything ached and he knew it probably did. He knew he wouldn't know what to do if he lost his mom because she was right there and she was the only thing that made it not hurt. He was trying to help like that, but he wasn't sure he could. 

A few of his relatives, mostly people he hardly ever saw who spoke in too-quick Spanish, eyed him warily and he tried to be friendly. It was hard when you were sad and everything hurt, but he tried and some of them smiled back. They came by in small groups, paying their respects to his mother and avoiding his father like the plague. His father, ever supportive, glared back at them and muttered about things in language that he knew would make his mother angry if she heard it. He listened for a while before his father turned to the casket itself, the coffin closed mostly for his sake. 

“$3,000 fuckin' dollars,” he heard, and he knew exactly what his father was talking about because they'd fought in the car. The service was simple and the casket was the bottom of the barrel and they were going to cremate her so that she could be sent back to Mexico to be buried with his great-grandmother, but it still cost money. Money his mom would be working overtime for the next few months to pay off.

Scott's teeth clenched tight when he heard it and the anger rose up, hot and tight. This was her funeral, her memorial service. His mother was in pieces and he hurt all over and people were here to say goodbye and his father was mouthing off about money he wouldn't even work for but he was angry that it wasn't being spent on HIM and what HE wanted. 

“Shut up!” he snapped at his father. His father blinked, absolutely amazed that someone had spoken back to him and further amazed a moment later when he realized that it had come from his own son. He gaped for a moment before his expression turned absolutely livid and he started marching over to his wife and child.

“What did you just say to me, you little shit?” and he grabbed the tie his mother had insisted on a few hours earlier. It popped off in his hand, a clip-on since Scott had felt like the real tie was choking him, and he snatched at Scott's shirt the second time to tug him forward, his shoes stuttering against the thin carpet. 

“I said 'shut up',” he repeated a second time, his heart beating a million miles an hour as his eyes scanned around to see if anyone else had noticed. They had, most of his relatives had, but none of them were stepping forward. He didn't want anyone to, though. He was angry and he wanted to tell his father to shut up because he should shut up and he wasn't even wanted here, wasn't wanted anywhere.

The hand in his shirt tightened a little more and that hurt, made it harder to breathe, but he didn't make a sound, wouldn't give his father the satisfaction of knowing it hurt. Instead, he dug his feet in and pushed back. His father didn't let go, though. Or he didn't until his mother put her hand on his. 

Scott's father's focus immediately shifted up to his mother, and Scott had to admit that his mom looked pretty scary even with her makeup smeared and all the nice jewelry she was wearing. 

“Let go of him right now,” she ground out from between clenched teeth, “and don't say another word.” 

Her fingers, nails long and painted a dark red, jabbed into the meat of his father's hand and Scott could feel her digging in to make him let go. He did, glaring at his wife as if she'd just crossed some sort of line that Scott couldn't even imagine, before turning on his heel and walking out. 

His mother, her hand shifting to settle on his shoulder, shook just a little before kneeling down to wrap her arms around him and kiss his cheek without a word. It was then, and only then, that the anger drained out of him, leaving him sad and aching and rocking against her. 

It hurt more the next night when she had to work like always and his dad took out his frustration and embarrassment from the night before on him. There hadn't been anything else, no other discussion, no other words. He'd just been in the living room watching TV and his father had walked in and told him that he had a lesson to learn. He learned that no matter how much it hurt, his bruises almost never showed. That probably wasn't the lesson his father had tried to teach him, but it was the one that stuck.

Then there'd been the custody hearings. That's when he'd let go, really got to talk about the inhaler and the sports try outs and the nights when his mom had to work late and just how good his best friend Stiles was with an ACE bandage. He'd let his anger out then, let them see exactly how he felt even when his father tried to convince them that his mother had 'brainwashed' him against his own father, that she was a drug addict and teaching Scott to be one too, that he had a right to see and discipline his son if he was ever going to grow up to become anything.

They'd believed him but only just barely, so the old man had tried to force the matter and that had ended things pretty firmly. He'd watched Stiles's father carry his dad away in handcuffs, watched him go away forever, and he'd thought that maybe the anger would go away. It was done; he didn't need it anymore. It was just him and his mom and Stiles and his dad and he didn't need to be angry because there wasn't really anyone to be angry at anymore.

Except now there was a mortgage to pay on an overlarge house that had been bought because of a stupid man's stupid need to impress people. Now there were bills to handle without even the small assistance his father's menial jobs had given, which meant that Scott, fourteen and freshly legal to work, took a job so that his mother didn't drop dead of exhaustion. They'd fought about it in the sad, quiet way they fought that was more about how much they loved each other than about really being angry, and Scott had lost the fight but he'd also gone to Dr. Deaton and offered his services and gotten hired right away. His mother couldn't exactly keep track of where he was given her workload and the vet had been very accomodating to his school schedule.  Her fingers had left deep plum halfmoons in her palms when he'd given her his first paycheck, and she'd made him keep $20, but she'd taken it. There hadn't been much of a choice.

Through it all, the anger had faded away, hidden inside, unneeded and unwanted. There was frustration and there was hard times and there were fights and squabbles and life, but the anger wasn't there, didn't even haunt around the corners of his psyche because even when things were difficult, he had his mother and he had Stiles and things could have been so much worse.

Then he'd been bitten.

It had just prickled at the corners of his mind for most of the day, a faint warning that something had changed. Everything was more, smells and sights and sensations. Feelings. He had a date! He did well at lacrosse! He felt amazing and he didn't need his inhaler! He went to Stiles, to share it with Stiles, to tell Stiles about how awesome everything was and how he was going out with the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen and then Stiles was jabbering about werewolves and pulling his phone away and suddenly the anger flared to life again, stronger than it'd ever been before, stronger than anything.

The world was red and he couldn't even think until he realized that he'd shoved Stiles against the wall and his fist was poised inches from his best friend's face. His stomach dropped out, the world spun. The anger. How. He felt sick, dizzy from the force of it. 

Stiles. Stiles his best friend Stiles his safe place the happy smiles and burned casserole and sugary sodas and toys that didn't belong to either of them even if Stiles's parents bought all of them. Stiles first night of drinking Stiles first R-rated movie Stiles in his basement with popcorn and the both of them screaming and jumping when the killer popped out from the closet Stiles. 

He'd been angry because Stiles was taking away his phone, trying to take away his date. Holding him back. When Stiles was one of the best things he had going for him. 

He was going to be sick. He was going to go home and puke and he didn't know what else to do because he was so _angry_ but now it was at himself, at this... _whatever it was_ that had him angry enough to ever _ever_ raise his hand to his best friend and push him against a wall and almost 

Almost 

Then there was Derek, stupid _stupid_ Derek like his stupid father telling him he needed him, that he needed to listen, that he needed to do what Derek said and he was angry again. Angry that this was happening, angry that this was real, angry that he couldn't be with Allison, angry that there was this giant stupid THING between him and his mother for the first time in his life and angry that there was nothing he could do about it. 

Angry at lacrosse and angry at Jackson and so angry that the whole world was anger and pain and everything he hated about himself because it was inside of him, put inside him when he was born by a stupid man whose only contribution to him after that was to make the anger bigger and nastier and hotter and worse. And now, _now_ , he was a werewolf and he couldn't escape it. There were fangs and there were claws and there were sideburns that would make Wolverine blush but none of it was even half as bad as knowing that his anger now had a big furry ladder to climb up inside of him and hurt people, especially because it seemed like it wanted to hurt the people he cared about. Or even that it might. 

Derek was gone, disappeared off to... wherever he disappeared off to when he wasn't skulking around like a fricking creeper and he was alone in his room. His eye wandered around because everything but his insides were Incredibly Interesting right now. He looked at his old guitar, from when he and Stiles had been convinced they could start a band and become wildly successful. Then there was the crack in his headboard... that was less happy but considering it was the night his mother had caught his father hitting him... His mother... And his shirt from the party. 

Allison. 

All these things. All these things he had and all these people he loved and he _did_ love Allison. He might have just met her, it might be puppy love or infatuation or a million other silly teenage things but his feelings for her filled in a big portion of the big empty hole where his rage would crawl out and that made it real and important and worth fighting for. The guitar filled more and the crack in the headboard... 

Feeling silly and a little bit sad, his hand crept underneath his bed to where an old plastic car had been stuffed the last time he'd cleaned his room. It was dirty, with grime in the molded corners and dust in the wheel mechanisms, but the plastic car felt good in his hand. The other pressed up against the headboard before curling into a tight fist. 

Allison and Stiles and his mother and even, God rest her soul, his grandmother. He was loved. He _loved_. The anger was there but it always, _always_ would come second to that. To love and being loved and caring for the things he cared about. He couldn't be perfect, no one was perfect, but that. That had to be what he aspired to. That had to be what he knew to be important. He couldn't make that mistake, not now, not ever. When the rage came, when the wolf howled inside... 

Derek was right about one thing: he'd been bit and he was a werewolf. But right now, before this went any further, before another second passed, he swore that he could never, ever let himself be a monster.

**Author's Note:**

> Scott's grandmother's cadence was taken pretty much directly from my own Puerto Rican grandmother, for whom English was very much a second language. This is in a way dedicated to her.
> 
> The story is unbeta'd because I don't have a beta. ^_^;


End file.
